What we have in common is the great fact that mind-numbing boredom will drive us to do crazy shit! Bukowski, who was the ultimate outsider, (he was never even really a part of the Beat poets he’s always associated with) spent 20 years hopping from odd jobs to boarding houses to working as a mail guy in L.A. (I shudder to even think about what that looked like on a daily basis) and drinking and dying his way through it. And he was talented. You doubt? Try reading Post Office. But the problem (and this is just opinion) is that his disease may have gotten the better of him. Despite this, he was known to say something to the effect of: If you’re worried about selling your soul (and you know it) then at least you’ve still got a soul left to sell, so good for you!

Today is the perfect day to be inspired by something. It may require sustained effort, or hard work. It may ask you to challenge yourself or to try to do something you aren’t sure you’re capable of. But it’s worth it! Because we don’t get sober to live ordinary lives. I (probably) could have done that Bukowski-style, just hopping from one meaningless job to the next and skulking around Los Angeles for another 20 years. But instead, here I am, in Austin, Texas. I haven’t showered in two days. Whatever writing brain I have left has by now disintegrated completely beneath the rat’s nest I’m calling hair, and I’ve filled out so many forms and papers and paragraphs that they all seem to bleed together now in a disinterested dissertation on ‘How to start a business.’ And it occurs to me (in some distant place that’s like the time-share in your brain that you never really have time to use) that the whole business of starting a non-profit is complete lunacy, because after all, it’s NOT going to make you rich…thus, the non-profit. But with enormous effort, I call my brain back from that fuzzy tropical time-share and put on my bright sunny face (and also probably I shower and wash my hair, get some exercise today, and visit with a friend over lunch.) And though all this feels quite beyond me right now, at 6:34 a.m. when there are still two little people to feed, bathe, clothe and get to school in the next 47 minutes, I know that it will unfold just the way it’s meant to…one breath at a time.

Uhhh…okay. This may be wrong, because even my mouth is watering here. But that has nothing to do with me wanting to use, because thankfully, using (and drinking) have not seemed like solutions to any of my problems in a really long time. It has everything to do with what I was telling a (fairly) newcomer at my meeting last night–I sometimes have thoughts about drinking (or using) and when I have those thoughts, it may just be because I am an alcoholic! It’s the most normal thing in the world (especially when I’m newish) to think about a drink.

This is why it comes in handy to run your thoughts by someone who may have a little more time than you, or who may just be a little saner than you happen to be in any given moment. I call this Networking tip # 5: Solve challenges by connecting people with people. I desperately need my sober network, because if I suddenly go from thinking about morphine to deciding to use some, I’m a dead woman walking. There’s nothing that stops me when my disease is in action. I will go to any length to change the way I feel. That’s one of the ways I know I’m alcoholic. I used drugs and alcohol primarily because I liked the effect.

It’s also one of the reasons I stay sober…becuase I like the effect. One of my favorite program passages is from the Twelve & Twelve (p. 124) and it’s what the book calls the ‘Permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living.”